FirstLegion
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2007
- Messages
- 1,906
First, I just want to say that we hope this finds all of you safe and healthy during what are rapidly becoming extraordinary times that we live in. In my near 50 years on this planet, I don't think I've ever experienced anything quite like this and hope we don't again and that everyone in our passionate community of toy soldier makers, dealers, and collectors comes out the other side both healthy and stronger for the experience.
As a general update on the goings on at First Legion, we had massive plans at the start of this year to reorganize the business and shift the focus to Hong Kong in order to be closer to our production facilities and to continue to expand both the breadth and depth of product lines. To this end, I spent nearly the entire month of January in Hong Kong reorganizing manufacturing and preparing to shift a large part of the business to Hong Kong, including the opening of a full time First Legion office and showroom in Hong Kong. This trip was quite productive and I left Hong Kong quite excited about the year to come on the 24[SUP]th[/SUP] of January to spend a bit of time back in the USA with my family during the Chinese New Year holiday with a trip booked to return on February 7[SUP]th[/SUP] to enact all of the plans that had been made. I think you all know what has happened since. Flight was cancelled, factories in China couldn’t re-open, the border between Hong Kong and China all but closed with strict quarantines in effect. Since that time what was initially trying to be contained has now become a worldwide pandemic and all plans we made are on hold until the situation hopefully stabilizes and we can move forward.
While the factories in China have begun work again and we have new products being made, we simply have no means to actually get to the production facilities to do inspections and quality control, photograph and approve samples, and the myriad of other tasks necessary to bring First Legion figures to market. So production has resumed but our ability to actually release new products will remain on hold until such time as we can take these steps to ensure that the figures we do release are the extremely high quality products that we are known for. Producing figures to the painting level that we achieve requires this hands on attention to the products, so until the Covid-19 situation stabilizes and it’s again safe to travel, we will not be announcing or releasing any new products. Rather, they will be worked on and held at the production facilities until we can go there to finalize them and then subsequently released in batches. So to reiterate, we have begun production on new products including releases for WWII, Glory of Rome, Franco Prussian War, and Thirty Years War to name a few, but the finished products will be delayed and we can’t say for how long at this time.
So what can a boutique historical and fantasy miniature company do during this time? Well, one thing that we thought we could do is to offer our customers the enjoyment of our products at a reduced price. With more and more people spending time at home, toy soldiers and the escapism that they provide from everyday life are a nice distraction from the goings on of the outside world. To this end, we have decided to launch a one-off, limited time sale of over 800 different products at substantial discounts ranging from 25-50% off of retail. We want to make sure there is something for everyone, so we have tried to offer figures from nearly all ranges reach the greatest number of collector interests. So if there is a range you always wanted to get into but haven’t yet, now is a great time to get started. From Rome to WWII Vehicles to a massive selection of Napoleonics, we are offering up some of our most popular series at substantial savings. The sale will run until at least the end of April as our intention is to end the sale at the same time as our first release of the new products that we are working on. Once it’s over, it will be over and all prices for remaining inventories will revert back to normal.
To support the sale, we have created a new product category, “The BIG SALE” which can be found as the top link on the left hand side of our catalog listing on our website as well as linked from this email. Please note that these lists contain only the items on sale and are not our full catalog. However, you can still find these items discounted in our full online catalog as well, this new section was simply created for ease of identifying the sets on sale. You can also download an excel list of all figures listed for sale from our website for planning and ease of reference. All figures are fully warranted but unfortunately we cannot offer exchanges, refunds or discounts for previously purchased figures.
Again, we hope this finds all of you safe and healthy.
Best,
Matt
First Legion
As a general update on the goings on at First Legion, we had massive plans at the start of this year to reorganize the business and shift the focus to Hong Kong in order to be closer to our production facilities and to continue to expand both the breadth and depth of product lines. To this end, I spent nearly the entire month of January in Hong Kong reorganizing manufacturing and preparing to shift a large part of the business to Hong Kong, including the opening of a full time First Legion office and showroom in Hong Kong. This trip was quite productive and I left Hong Kong quite excited about the year to come on the 24[SUP]th[/SUP] of January to spend a bit of time back in the USA with my family during the Chinese New Year holiday with a trip booked to return on February 7[SUP]th[/SUP] to enact all of the plans that had been made. I think you all know what has happened since. Flight was cancelled, factories in China couldn’t re-open, the border between Hong Kong and China all but closed with strict quarantines in effect. Since that time what was initially trying to be contained has now become a worldwide pandemic and all plans we made are on hold until the situation hopefully stabilizes and we can move forward.
While the factories in China have begun work again and we have new products being made, we simply have no means to actually get to the production facilities to do inspections and quality control, photograph and approve samples, and the myriad of other tasks necessary to bring First Legion figures to market. So production has resumed but our ability to actually release new products will remain on hold until such time as we can take these steps to ensure that the figures we do release are the extremely high quality products that we are known for. Producing figures to the painting level that we achieve requires this hands on attention to the products, so until the Covid-19 situation stabilizes and it’s again safe to travel, we will not be announcing or releasing any new products. Rather, they will be worked on and held at the production facilities until we can go there to finalize them and then subsequently released in batches. So to reiterate, we have begun production on new products including releases for WWII, Glory of Rome, Franco Prussian War, and Thirty Years War to name a few, but the finished products will be delayed and we can’t say for how long at this time.
So what can a boutique historical and fantasy miniature company do during this time? Well, one thing that we thought we could do is to offer our customers the enjoyment of our products at a reduced price. With more and more people spending time at home, toy soldiers and the escapism that they provide from everyday life are a nice distraction from the goings on of the outside world. To this end, we have decided to launch a one-off, limited time sale of over 800 different products at substantial discounts ranging from 25-50% off of retail. We want to make sure there is something for everyone, so we have tried to offer figures from nearly all ranges reach the greatest number of collector interests. So if there is a range you always wanted to get into but haven’t yet, now is a great time to get started. From Rome to WWII Vehicles to a massive selection of Napoleonics, we are offering up some of our most popular series at substantial savings. The sale will run until at least the end of April as our intention is to end the sale at the same time as our first release of the new products that we are working on. Once it’s over, it will be over and all prices for remaining inventories will revert back to normal.
To support the sale, we have created a new product category, “The BIG SALE” which can be found as the top link on the left hand side of our catalog listing on our website as well as linked from this email. Please note that these lists contain only the items on sale and are not our full catalog. However, you can still find these items discounted in our full online catalog as well, this new section was simply created for ease of identifying the sets on sale. You can also download an excel list of all figures listed for sale from our website for planning and ease of reference. All figures are fully warranted but unfortunately we cannot offer exchanges, refunds or discounts for previously purchased figures.
Again, we hope this finds all of you safe and healthy.
Best,
Matt
First Legion
